Get Your Hopes Up!

In the book “Get Your Hopes Up”, Joyce Meyer teaches readers how to transform their lives by tapping into the power of hope. One of the most powerful forces in the universe is hope which she defined as the happy and confident anticipation that something good is going to happen. Regardless of where you are in life, it is impossible to live successfully and to the fullest without hope. The goal of the book is to help readers achieve a lasting sense of hope, built on their faith in God. Hope is only as strong as its source. This book helps readers avoid misplacing their trust in unreliable things, and help them ground their hope steadfastly in God for limitless joy and possibilities for their lives. As Joyce explains, “Without hope in God, there isn’t much you can do, but with Hope in God, there isn’t much you can’t do.”

“Evaluating our hearts is an important exercise as we begin this journey of hope together, because hope in God and positive expectation are very closely related to faith. The book will help you find hope, understand what it is, and how to keep it so that you will live a fulfilled life. She shared several life examples about how to live with hope, I particularly enjoyed the narratives around “spiritual possums”. Whenever a difficulty or storm comes into people that are passive about their life, they play possum. They stop moving as if they have hit an impenetrable wall and their faith and hope go right out the window. Rather than getting active, they get passive. When times get tough, when they’re dealing with pain or disappointment, they freeze. They just stop moving. Does this sound familiar? Have you ever found yourself in a holding pattern because of an unexpected trial or a crushing disappointment? I want to encourage you in the midst of your pain that sometimes the very best thing you can do is just keep moving. You may not have all the answers yet. You may still be shocked by the circumstances around you. You may even feel like the world is caving in around you. In the midst of those difficulties, if you’ll just keep moving, it will help you not to become hopeless.”.

There is so much great advice to counter all the negative self-talk we’ve become accustom to and the one huge take away for me, was that hope is a powerful thing, but it doesn’t thrive in an atmosphere of can’t! Joyce uses her own personal stories and that of others to help draw us to the conclusion that we can find hope in any situation if we are willing to look and trust God to help us as our first resource not our fall back plan. Friends and family can mean well but often times, they don’t make us feel any better when we need the God’s honest truth, to get us back into the game of life again. For anyone facing a difficult time or situation, this is the perfect book to help them move past the situation and see what God has in store for them as they cling to a life of positive hope. The book is divided into three sections:

SECTION 1: Hope to go higher

John 10:10 Jesus said “I came that they may have and enjoy life, and have it in abundance.

• For David, hope asked the question no one else had the courage to ask.
• For Moses, hope broke chains of bondage.
• For Esther, hope believed against all odds that God could use her to save her people from destruction.
• For the disciples, hope gave them courage to embark on a new life and become world changers.
• It is true that God wants us to be content and satisfy with what we have, but it is not wrong to desire more things, as long as we do so for right reasons.
• The level of your expectation is the level of your faith. Show me a person with low expectations, and I will show you a person using very little faith.
• We trust our friends, the bank, the stock market, the government, or our own talents and abilities more than we trust God and his word. That is why some people say things like “I’ve done everything I know to do, but none of it is working, so there is nothing else to do but pray. That is a reverse logic. We must start with prayers and commit our ways to God.
• Prayer should be our first line of defense in ay battle, never a last-ditch effort after all else has failed.
• It is God’s intention to overcome every can’t in our lives. Have a “Can Do” Attitude.
• Sarah was too old to have children.
• Moses couldn’t convince Pharaoh on his own
• Gideon was unqualified to lead the army.
• What are the can’t you are currently dealing with?
• Hope is not a passive thing. It does not require you to sit around passively hoping things will get better. It is not a sit-back-and-do-noting feeling.
• Hope energizes us and motivates us to take action.
• David acted and he defeated Goliath.
• If you have a dream in your heart. You must take steps that will help you to bring the dreams into reality.
• Hope can transform you from where you are to where you need to be.
• Abram became Abraham
• Sarai became Sarah
• Jacob became Isrel
• Simon became Peter
• Saul became Paul
• A shepherd became a king.
• Fishermen became disciples

SECTION 2: Hope when you are hurting.

Psalm 121:1-2 “I will lift up my eyes to the hills – from whence comes my help? My help comes from the Lord, Who made heaven and earth.

• Go to the Lord when you are dealing with any challenges. He is the only one you can depend on all the time, not your spouse, friend, or yourself.
• The more you focus on what you have, the more amazed you will be at God’s goodness in your life.
• When you start taking an inventory of God’s goodness in your life, when you start to count your blessings, it fills your heart with joy. It is impossible to be thankful and discouraged at the same time.
• Just like the food we eat affects us physically, the words we speak affect us spiritually, mentally, and emotionally.
• Your attitude should be, “My circumstances are not very good right now, but I choose to be full of hope. I am expecting something good to happen in my life today”
• You need to press on in the face of difficulties. Keep your eyes on the prize.
• What is it that God has laid upon your heart to do? You need to take steps and obey his words. Is he telling you to:
• Go back to school
• Change the way you talk to your spouse
• Have a joyful attitude
• Spend more time studying the word
• Give a gift to someone in need
• Serve in your church
• Start a Bible study

SECTION 3: Hope and Happiness.

Psalm 146:5 “Happy is he who has the god of Jacob for his help, whose hope is the lord his God”.

• Develop an attitude of hope. When you do, hope thrives and cynicism dies. And you will see daily tasks as opportunities rather than obligations.
• If you are waiting on something today, don’t external appearance steal your hope and crush your joy.
• Sometimes we have to fight for hope. We must push past the voices in the world that try to drown it out. It is important to surround ourselves with people who are not negative and gloomy.
• When a farmer plants a garden, he puts tiny seeds in the ground and after a while he gets back an entire garden of plants tat provide for him and his family. God’s promise that we will reap what we sow still amazes me. If we want something, all we need to do is start giving some of it away!
• How can any difficulty make us unhappy for very long when we have the promise that God works all things out for good for those who love Him and who are seeking his purpose for their lives.
• We should be happy because of the hope we have in Jesus and not be unhappy because we have a circumstance that we don’t like.
• Don’t wait for tomorrow, most people postpone the day of their joy, by saying that they will really be happy and enjoy life when they go on vacation, get married, climb career ladder, have a baby, kids get older and so on. Don’t wait. Enjoy life now.

Get your copy of this book here.